


Principles of VIP Protection

by Inner Voice (inner_v0ice)



Category: Body (movie concept)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:17:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inner_v0ice/pseuds/Inner%20Voice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of "missing scene" vignettes expanding on canon and showing the development of Danny and David's relationship, structured around a real set of guidelines from a manual for bodyguards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Principles of VIP Protection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenellaevangela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/gifts).



> The "principles of VIP protection" here are taken from _Bodyguard Manual_ by Leroy Thompson. The word "principal" is used to refer to the main (hence, _principal_ ) person that the bodyguard has been hired to protect.

**1) Be constantly alert, no matter how mundane the task.**

David was used to long, slow periods of standing guard while his clients did mundane, everyday tasks. The lives of VIPs weren't all flash and excitement: businessmen read reports and balanced budgets; actors memorized scripts and spent days doing take after take of the same scene; politicians wrangled over endless minutiae by phone and e-mail.

This was, however, the first time he had ever guarded a client while said client cut colorful shapes out of construction paper. (Wait, that wasn't quite true--Senator Schuler had helped his grandkids with their school project one time. But it was definitely the first time that the client had cut out three dozen shapes and was showing no sign of stopping anytime soon.)

David shrugged inwardly (and outwardly remained as still as a rock). A job was a job, and guard duty was guard duty; it was irrelevant what the client happened to be doing.

**2) Never leave the principal unguarded while you are on duty.**

"Are you _seriously_ going to sleep outside my bedroom door all night?"

"It would be better if I slept inside your bedroom, but you apparently object to that."

"Of course I object to that! Have you ever heard of the concept of 'privacy'?"

"You're receiving threatening letters and have been the target of a possible kidnapping attempt, with no clues as to _why._ At this point, security needs to be higher priority than privacy."

"All right, _fine_. I teach my kids about compromises... I guess I ought to be able to make one myself. Sleeping outside my bedroom door it is."

**3) Be ready to place yourself between the principal and the threat.**

"Oh my God. Oh my _God._ Are you all right?"

David looked up from pressing a cloth bandage to the wound in his upper arm. "It looks like it's minor; just a shallow graze. The nearest clinic is about a block that way. We should go and get your wrist checked, make sure there's nothing worse than bruising, and I can get my arm checked as well."

"Oh. Yeah. Clinic, okay. Let's go!"

Danny was oddly quiet as they made their way to the clinic. He usually talked a mile a minute when he was stressed or agitated, but something about this incident seemed to have shocked him into silence.

"You put yourself between that guy and me," he said finally. "I can't believe it. I mean, you _literally_ took a bullet for me just now."

"It's my job, remember?" David replied calmly. "I'm your bodyguard; I put myself between you and danger when it's necessary. _Ideally,_ I would avoid injury myself as well, but that's not always possible. Bullets are an occupational hazard."

"Still," Danny said after another moment of silence, "thanks. I've never had anyone willing to take a bullet for me before, whether or not it was their job. ...Of course, I've never had anyone whose job it was before, so the 'whether or not' doesn't really make much sense--"

It looked like Danny was back to his usual self, and David was surprised to find himself smiling a small smile the rest of the way to the clinic.

**4) The good bodyguard learns to watch constantly for anomalies: the individual who appears out of place, the vehicle parked where a vehicle should not be parked, the tell-tale signs of tampering that might indicate the placing of an explosive device.**

"Hold it!" David snapped, putting out his arm to block Danny from entering the classroom. "Someone's been tampering with your desk. That pile of paper wasn't there yesterday afternoon. And look how it's bulging: there's something hidden under there."

Danny opened his mouth to protest that David was being paranoid again, then remembered the attack a few days before and closed his mouth again. He followed closely behind David as the bodyguard cautiously approached the desk, then very slowly and carefully slid the sheet of construction paper aside to reveal what was under it.

It was a sleek-looking pen in a plastic case, with a card laid on top:

_to techeR DAny - MeRRy cRrismAs from kAty + mom_

Danny let out a relieved huff of breath and grinned widely. "Hah! False alarm!" He picked up the pen and held it out to David for inspection. "No explosives, poisons, or deadly weapons here."

David shot him a wry look. "You know that a pen can be _used_ as a deadly weapon, right? And a small amount of explosives could well be hidden in something the size of a pen." But he didn't seem to be about to confiscate the pen, so after a cautious moment, Danny clicked the pen and tested how it wrote.

(It had blue ink and wrote beautifully. He made a mental note to thank Katy's mother at the next parent-teacher conference.)

**5) Discourage your principal from establishing a routine that will make him or her an easy target. Whenever possible, routes should be varied. Do not leave for the office at exactly the same time every day.**

" _Seriously?_ I have to leave the house at a different time and take a different route _every day_?"

"It's better to be--"

"--cautious, I know," Danny sighed. After a moment of dejected silence, an idea seemed to strike him and he perked up significantly. "Hah! I know exactly how to make this actually pleasant! This is now officially the perfect excuse for us to eat breakfast out every day. We can eat at a different cafe every morning, so that (a) we're not just wandering around pointlessly and (b) we can try all the places around here that I've always wanted to eat at but never made the time for!"

David smiled at the sudden enthusiasm from Danny, ignoring the strange twinge at the back of his brain that was telling him Danny was using the words 'us' and 'we' a little too often for this to be a normal client-bodyguard relationship. All his previous clients had assumed that he would take care of his own meals at separate times from theirs -- a natural assumption, since that was standard procedure.

Danny, on the other hand, was saying "I get to choose first, since I've been wanting to go to that Swiss bakery three blocks away ever since it opened, but you can choose tomorrow. We'll take turns."

David nodded in agreement, and ignored the mental voice that said "there's that 'we' again..."

**6) For the bodyguard, a problem avoided is much better than a problem solved; confrontations may be macho, but they’re counter-productive to the principal’s image and safety.**

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

Surprised, David looked up from cleaning his guns to see Danny looking at him with a serious expression.

"Once," he answered. "Don't get me wrong--this job isn't about being macho or racking up a kill count. Ideally, it's about troubleshooting. You--the client--should be as safe as possible and have as little disruption in routine as possible. But sometimes... I'll do what I have to do to protect the client."

**7) Do not let yourself be distracted from your main mission -- to protect the principal.**

David couldn't fool himself any more. This was _not_ an ordinary client-bodyguard relationship any more, and hadn't been for a while now. Too much of Danny had somehow made its way under David's skin. Breakfast together in a dozen different cafes; Danny's long thin fingers wielding plastic safety scissors and glue; lying down at night outside Danny's bedroom door listening for the faint sound of movement within.

There was no way, _no way,_ that this could end well.


End file.
